Demining operations wind down after 15 years

Fifteen years after the end of Mozambique's devastating civil war, efforts to clear the country of deadly landmines are entering the final phase. The largest humanitarian group involved in demining, HALO Trust, a UK-based nongovernmental organisation (NGO) that specialises in removing the debris of war, said their work was nearly done.

HALO will end its demining operations in June after working in Mozambique's four northern provinces for 13 years. In 2006, the NGO accounted for more than 98 percent of all mines cleared in the country.

The Norwegian People's Aid (NPA), a humanitarian NGO run by Norwegian trade union movement, has also undertaking demining but left Mozambique in December last year, explaining that the government had the capacity to handle the few mines that remained in the central provinces.

International humanitarian support for demining operations in Mozambique dropped by more than 25 percent in 2006, to US$9.2 million from $12.7 million the year before, reflecting a growing consensus among donor and aid organisations that landmines in Mozambique no longer posed a major threat.

Government officials, however, do not feel they are up to the task of completing the work themselves. At a meeting in February to discuss the country's new demining plan, the deputy minister for foreign affairs and cooperation, Henrique Banze, said the pull-out of international partners would hinder the country's development.

Impact of mines "low"

"It is important that our partners continue to contribute because the problem we are dealing with, from the point of view of development as well as with demining, still requires a great deal of national and international effort," said Banze. He pointed out that Mozambique has until 2009 to meet its obligations under the Landmine Ban Treaty, which left them very little time.

The director of the National Demining Institute was not available for comment.

"There are mines left in Mozambique," said Jane Filseth Andersen, an NPA mine-action advisor. "But the impact of these mines has been relatively low, and maybe too low to justify a huge international presence to clear that problem, and we now feel that Mozambique authorities should be able to deal with the residual problem."

She added that a lack of funding for the NPA's programme had also influenced their decision to cease operations. Like Mozambique, she said, "We also have limitations."

"After more than 12 years of demining there's a feeling of fatigue, especially on the donor side," said Alberto Alface, programme analyst for mine action and disaster risk reduction for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Mozambique. "But at least for all the stakeholders - the UN [United Nations], the UNDP [United Nations Development Programme], and IND [the National Demining Institute], there's also a common understanding that at this very moment the picture is not clear that the problem is finished."

After more than 12 years of demining there's a feeling of fatigue, especially on the donor side

In the past decade, new mine threats have surfaced as development projects have progressed, especially in southern Mozambique. Rural electrification and the construction of new gas pipelines and cellular telephone towers have encouraged new communities to set up homes near once-remote minefields.

Mozambique has long been a 'poster child' for the threat posed by landmines. A study in the early 1990s estimated that there were some two million anti-personnel mines scattered in fields and under roadbeds after almost 30 years of continuous war: from the struggle for independence from Portugal to the formal end of civil war in 1992.

During 15 years of peace, mines not only have killed or maimed people, but have also prevented the farming and development of vast tracts of land. The process of demining has lasted almost as long as the civil war, and has cost about $175 million. At the height of their activities, HALO and NPA each employed more than 600 demining personnel, making them two of the larger enterprises in the country.

But over the years the scale of the problem has been revised downward significantly. In 13 years, the HALO Trust has cleared about 100,000 mines in provinces that represent half the area of the country.

Last year, 19 deaths were attributed to landmines and unexploded ordinance, but the number of mines recovered annually has reduced to a trickle. In provinces not cleared by the HALO Trust, only 177 landmines were unearthed in 2006.

Dan Bridges, HALO's Mozambique programme manager, is leading a new survey to determine landmine threats that may still exist south of the Zambezi River. "The donors have long wanted to know what the extent of the real problem is in the south and central regions, because they are often asked to financially contribute to a problem that is ill defined."

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